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5th Anniversary Giveway Day 3: The Meandering Path of Just Hungry

The header graphic of the 2nd design of Just Hungry displayed one of these 4 illustrations at random.

As I wrote yesterday, when I started Just Hungry I had no plans at all about the theme of the site, other than it would be about food. I think that you could get away with that back then, when the number of actual food blogs was probably still in the low hundreds.

The focus of this site has evolved in a rather meandering way, and it is now mainly about Japanese home cooking, healthy eating, and the occasional food related travel report. This was as much guided by what site readers seemed to want to read here, as much was what I wanted to write about. In my regular eating life, I don't just cook and eat Japanese food, and I confess I don't always eat healthily either! But in general, I've found that when I stray from my main themes too much, reader numbers tend to go down. Since I do enjoy writing about the themes that people seem to like reading, that's really fine with me.

Nowadays there are probably thousands of blogs dedicated to food, and if you are starting a new food blog and want to built up a reader base, you probably want to focus on something specific that would garner attention. Indeed I think the reason why Just Bento has grown much faster than Just Hungry did in its early years is that the focus is much narrower. (The traffic numbers for Just Hungry are still nearly 2 times that of Just Bento on average, but Just Bento has more RSS feed readers already.) Two of the most successful food blogs out there that I admire greatly and were in existence when Just Hungry started out, Simply Recipes and Chocolate & Zucchini, have always been quite focused, which I think accounts for their popularity to a great extent.

Still, I am quite happy to have Just Hungry remain quite general in its focus, because it gives me the freedom to go off on a tangent if I want to. It's an outlet for me as much as anything else. For instance, I stopped doing detailed episode recaps of Top Chef after seasons 1 and 2, when I realized that the recap posts were attracting the wrong kind of attention (as in, a disproportionate share of trolls). I was quite put off talking much about food-related TV shows after that. But when I found a show I really enjoyed recently on BBC, Supersize Me, I felt like doing detailed recaps again and quite enjoyed them - and this time, perhaps because it was about food history, not a reality show, they didn't attract trolldom! And while I may write mostly about Japanese food or good-for-you food, I can occasionally bust out and write about something loaded with, say, butter and bacon. (I'm thinking bacon-chocolate-chip-cookies, what do you think?) That's the beauty of having your very own stage, or blog, to shout from.

And now, today's giveaway!

Just Hungry 5th Anniversary Giveaway Item 3: The Way To Cook by Julia Child

Please check the giveaway rules in the first post. Do try to remember to keep it to one comment per item/entry, thanks! (I've noticed that sometimes people seem to get impatient and post the same comment twice. I use a spam-preventing tool called Mollom, which sometimes can cause a short delay between the time your comment is entered and the time it appears. So please wait a bit before submitting another comment.) Remember: You need to give me your email address (in the email entry area) where I can contact you if you win, your name (or nickname), and your location (country).

Today's giveaway is my favorite cookbook by far in English, The Way To Cook by Julia Child. It's the one I turn to for recipes that work. As you might expect from the great lady Julia Child, it has lots of standard French recipes, but it also has a lot of great American classics like Boston Baked Beans, New England Boiled Dinner, and more. Published in 1989, it is timeless and classic, with beautiful photographs and clear, easy to follow recipes. (I wrote about my love for this book two years ago, and my feelings about it now are exactly the same.) It's sure to become a much-loved book in your kitchen too.

Please note this book has standard U.S. measurements in cups, ounces and so on.

DEADLINE: Your comment/entry must be posted before Midnight Greenwich Mean Time on Saturday, December 6th. (You can find out the current GMT by typing in 'What time is it GMT' in Google. by the way.)

This giveaway is now closed. Thank you for participating! The winner will be announced next week. Check out the front page for the open giveaways you can still enter!

I went to the renovated American History Museum this weekend and they had an exhibit about Julia Child's kitchen... which I think was Julia's actual kitchen that she designed personally in the later years of her life, or at least a reproduction of it. The part that everyone loved was how she had mounted pegboard all over her walls in order to hang kitchen utensils, pots and pans, etc. Brilliant! And it was so funny to see pictures of Julia in earlier kitchens, namely when she lived in Paris -- she towered over this tiny, tiny stove.

I like your blog because it is about Japanese food from an expat perspective. It's very hard to get ingredients where I am, even by mail, since the postal system is shady. I like looking at the Japanese cooking magazines online to drool at them but I can't get half of the vegetables and ingredients they talk about.

i've been meaning to buy this since you mentioned it last summer in a post about cookbooks... so i'm in!
it's really nice the way you managed to have a very focused foodblog and a more general one. i have become an affectionate reader of both, and i appreciate their differencies!
silvia
france

Growing up, I would sit with my grandmother and watch countless reruns of Julia Child, and seeing that book brings it all back. Thank you for the reminder of fond memories and your amazing site which I have been with for years.

Oh my goodness, I remember watching Julia Child as a kid on PBS. What a blast from the past. Her cooking was always so awesome - she was capable of very extravagant cooking to scraping the bottom of the fridge and still coming up with something delicious.

When I was very young, my older brother used to do Julia Child impressions, even though neither of us really knew who she was. But it was side-splittingly funny. Now that I'm older and cooking all the time, it's been fun to use her cooking genius with that voice in my head.

I have this book on my list of books I want to buy one day. I borrowed it from the public library a while back and realized after reading the first few pages that it's a keeper. Thanks for offering it as part of the giveaway - it would make a great gift to any cook! -- Natalie in Canada

Being british I wasn't really aware of Julia Child, as I grew up with Delia Smith's Complete Cookery Course as the bible for standard recipes, but I picked up by accident a copy of the Julie Julia book about the blog started by Julie and her aim to cook her way through French Cookery...

I love the older cookery books. Becaused I'm mostly vegan, I find all the newer ones are convinced that we have access to endless supplies of specialst foods. For those of us outside the USA, things like Seiten are hard to find... I often find I get better recipes from older, ohmniverous books than I do from the vegan ones!

oh my goodness! bacon chocolate chip cookies were always something I wanted to try making, but the blog with the recipe I had my eye on went down =( and of course, I'm too much of a coward to try making my own without a recipe to guide my way. Will you be making your own cookies, or writing about them in general?

I actually enjoy when you stray from the usual stuff. Looking back through older posts, some of the non-Japanese and non-healthy stuff is really good! If you ever started another food blog (which would be crazy) I would vote for cookbook/recipe reviews and some kind of daily-dinner report.

I was so sad when I heard she'd died... but as it happens, I was traveling on business and got to dine that night with a foodie friend, so we did our best to honor her memory with a delish meal. That said, I've never really cooked from her recipes. Perhaps a cookbook would be a good place to start. ;-)

I just bought Julie and Julia, the book about the woman who tries you Julia Child's cooking. I read the first page on the way home where Julia Child's husband wrote about his wife's newfound love(?)/obsession(?) and I am so excited for the two of them... and to immerse myself!

btw - if Julia's kitchen is still at the Smithsonian, it's SOOOO COOOOOL!

Gee, I've never even looked @ a Julia Child cookbook - and how silly since I am a total cookbook collector/reader/whatever. LOL Would be fun to win that one to add her to my eclectic collection. :)
Thanks. Debbie in NY, USA

Congrats on your 5th anniversary. I often wish there were more than 24 hours in a day so that I had enough time to get things done. When I don't have time to read blogs, at least I content myself with seeing some of the wonderful pictures on yours. I guess there's a true meaning in "a picture is like a thousand words".

Your blog has been a great source of recipes and inspiration since I first discovered it last year. The focus on healthy, Japanese food suits my expat life in Beijing perfectly. All the ingredients are easily available at local supermarkets, the recipes are simply and easy to follow, and all are super tasty!

Hi!! I've been a fan of your site for like 2 years but I just signed up for the update letter like hmm a month or so?! I check it now almost everyday because my new boy is japanese and I want to impress him! (even though he makes fun of me because of how much it takes me to cook something :-( ) and he's half german too! so this is about that german drink (Gluhwein) you talked about 3 posts ago: can it be a normal pot, or why does it has to be a heavy bottomed pan (I wonder if I can get that here in the United States!) I figured that being such an easy recipe, I can't screw it up haha! Do I need to use cardamon pods? I have no idea where can I get that at! Oh and sorry if this wasn't the correct place to put this at, I didn't know if I can make a post in an already old thread
thanks for everything!

One day in the coming year I'm determined to visit The Smithsonian Institution so I can visit Julia Child's transplanted kitchen. She gave me confidence to try cooking all those decades ago. And MFK Fischer. And Marguerite Patten.
Elaine
USA

You have touched the sweet spot of our memories of watching Julia Child on TV for years. I remember taking notes as she made a poached fish in parchment in a long fish poaching pan. Taking notes because she made it so interesting! I don't much care for fish, don't have those items in my kitchen to this day, and yet she had the ability to fascinate. "The Way to Cook" is another masterpiece. I own a copy. The winner will love it also. (I'm not in the running for it.) USA

is an amazing inspiration to anyone who didn't initially have the ability to cook. I'm not one of those people (I grew up interested in cooking), but my sister certainly, there is still hope for her :)

I've just read The Tenth Muse, which is the autobiography of Julia Child's editor for Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It's a great read and it got me interested in Child and in classical French cuisine, which was totally over my head before!

I, too, used to watch her show, with my mother. At the time I didn't care much, but I KNOW a lot of it rubbed off on me!

Bacon and chocolate. Have you seen/tried the chocolate bar by Vosges? http://www.vosgeschocolate.com/category/bacon_and_chocolate
I love the inventiveness of her flavor palette, and this really does work...it's quite good.
Peanut butter and bacon pizza, too. There is a place in Oakland, California where I used to order peanut butter and bacon pizza--the peanut butter is subbed for the sauce, white cheddar and mozzarella for the cheese, then bacon and carmellized onions on top. If you think in terms of the use of peanuts in Thai food, it's not so weird!

Anyway, thanks for all the great information, and for doing this wonderful series of giveaways!

I am mostly a reader of Just Bento, but I like to visit here too. Which certainly proofs your theory about the tighter focus.

What I like especially about both your blogs is that even though they are in English, which is perfectly fine with me, they are not US-centric. Because of the difference in measurements for recipes is it sometimes hard to follow pure US blogs. Also that you are always aware on how it might be hard to get some specific ingredients.

...it would be healthier but what would be the point in eating it? - a paraphrase of Julia Child.
I wish that there would be a food channel which reran her and Jacques Pepin's cooking lessons. Just wanted to say thanks for the giveaways (I don't suppose these come from cleaning out your books? :) )
best wishes - Lynh in the US

Mom's Julia Child cookbook is covered in dried up god-knows-what and splitting into separate folios... if it's that amazing, I'm not sure why I don't have one! Send me one. :P
Caitlin, Canada.
(Also, I like when you write about random things! The food show recaps are really interesting, especially because I don't have cable to watch them myself.)

nihongo wakarimasen so luckily your blog is in english - as your entries are so enjoyable. lately nostalgic for me, bringing back memories of childhood bento (packed in wax paper and paper sacks tho - mom would only let us take the metal boxes on special days). also she and I would watch Julia Child on tv together, and that I think is when I started to think of cooking as more than a chore.
thanks for your blog, congratulations on your anniversary!